Return
by Izzu
Summary: Post series. Eiji had always looked for ways to get Ankh back. He never thought Ankh would return to his side this way. AU
1. Prologue

My bad. This muse insisted to come out, despite the fact I'd rather continue on my WIP should Ankh muse revive. But no... this had to come. Pfft.

I'll be putting up a temporary title for now until I could think of a good one.

PS: To whomever concerned: I usually self-beta, but occasionally I missed some. My grammar wasn't always perfect. If you think I worded something wrong, please point out what was wrong instead of just complaining. It may be that either of us could be mistaken, but at least I could try checking it out. That was better than me trying to read your mind because I could not find the things you're expecting me to find. If you cannot even do that, don't bother leaving anything. I won't mind not getting new reviews.

Since half the time I posted, I might be tired by then and any wording would be weird.

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><p><span>Return<span>

Prologue: Dreams

Written by Izzu

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Once a while he had imagined how it would be like when he finally succeed to find a way to bring Ankh back. After all, there was no guarantee that he could achieve that so easily—even if he had asked Kougami about the location of that place where he had found the origins of the Greeed. Though actually, he should not have gone that far. After all, Kougami had those vast amount of document stored in his secret vault. Eiji could have just asked to read all those records.

But no, he did not want to do that. He was not that studious type after all, and he could not just ask Gotou to do that for him. Or any other one of his friends. All of them had resumed to live their own lives after all. Date, back to doing his old job; Hina, back to her usual college life; Shingo-san with his police job—he even helped Gotou to rejoin the force.

All of them had returned to the life they used to have before, so he should not involve them any longer with his own selfishness. For all they know, he was back to his old ways as well—travelling the world without any specific direction, reaching out his hand to anyone who needed his aid. They did not need to know that during his wanderings, he was also looking around for any trace of the scattered, lost core medals. They did not need to know that prior to his leaving, he had told Kougami that he would like to personally look for any other documentation about the Greeeds that have not yet been found as well as recovering the cores. Kougami did not even mind for him wanting to do that, but he would rather have the rest of his friends kept in the dark about what he was attempting to do. They had been worrying about him when he had quickly recovered over Ankh's loss, to their surprise; if they knew about this they would have stopped him from leaving. They would think he was keeping himself from moving on with his life by clinging on to Ankh.

But that assumption would be wrong. He was moving on with his life, he realized now that he had the method to achieve the things he wanted to do. His way of thinking had also changed for the better.

Even then, it should not hurt to also try to find a way to bring Ankh back. Because he refused to think that Ankh had died for real. He did not think that was true, he could still feel him being around after all. Occasionally...

Occasionally, he saw Ankh right after waking up from bed. Ankh would grin at him for being such a sleepy head but as he reached out to hold Ankh's hand, Ankh would fade from view. Some other time, when he was out walking... he could feel as if Ankh's arm had been hovering nearby. And sometimes he could swear he saw Ankh looking back at him from amongst the crowd around him.

If he told this to Hina or the others, they might say that he was seeing things. Or worse... saying that Ankh's ghost was haunting him. Oh, no. He could not even imagine that happening. Ankh... a ghost?

He could not imagine Ankh ever becoming a ghost for anyone. Even himself.

xxx

"Eh? You have the red ones like this broken one I had?" asked Eiji hastily in English as the kid was nodding vigorously at him and urging him to follow. Eiji could not imagine his luck to be this good. So far, his search was never so easy. Occasionally he would hear rumours about someone finding an odd-looking _coin_ or more, and he would pursue that lead only to find that they were not medals. At least the type of medals that he was looking for. Yet right now, this kid was telling him that he found some of them... even better, all of them were _red medals_—If that was no luck, he could not say anything else.

Eiji could not believe his eyes as the kid showed him the medals. Since the kid did not only have a few of the red cores but also some cell medals!

Eiji took out Ankh's broken hawk core from his pocket but suddenly dropped it to the ground as he stared at it in surprise. The broken core... had gone hot to the touch for no reason—and before he could recover it, the two broken cores started to shake before they combined with each other. He blinked as the once broken core restored itself anew before the other cores and cell medals flew towards it. The piles of floating medals started to form a shape before bursting into light.

Eiji opened his eyes as the light started to fade before noticing Ankh standing in front of him. Ankh started to open his eyes as his body remained bathed in light. He cocked his head towards Eiji before his body disappeared, leaving just a right arm. Eiji started to reach out with his own hand before opening his mouth...

xxx

"ANKH!" Eiji cried out before falling off from the bed. He immediately opened his eyes to find himself back inside his room.

Eiji sighed before rubbing the bump on the side of his head. "Ah... that was just a dream."


	2. Chapter 1

If you guys managed to read this chapter till the end, you might notice I'm crossing this with something else, XP. Well, amuse me until Megamax is released. XD And this is definitely AU and hopefully I can finish this before Megamax so that I won't be tempted to butcher this piece later.

A/N: Spell-checkers/auto-correct functions do not always detect mistakes. If there are any, **please point out** the mistakes. Complaining will not be helpful.

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><p><span>Return<span>

Chapter 1: Stolen

Written by Izzu

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_Ankh opened his eyes to find himself inside the light. Ah... he was here again. Was this what it felt like to be in spirit form—wait, he used to be in a similar condition like this before. Even though here was a little less crowded than what he used to be in._

_Not even a sight of cell medals. Not that he was expecting it. He should be in that state... what was that? Dying... oh! Dead. He was dead. Yet he was not. At least, that was what he was feeling._

_He occasionally... dreamed. He dreamed that he was tailing Eiji around, poking and teasing him around despite the human not being able to see him. He also did... occasionally dreamed that he was staying with Eiji and watching over him. Those kind of things could not have happened if he had died... right? Yet, was he or was he not dead now?_

_This was not how he had expected... dying to be like._

xxx

Eiji got up and gathered his things before looking at himself in the mirror.

Ah, another day opened up. Another day of looking for clues and picking though some things people randomly collect for chances of finding some medals. Even though a part of him often scolded himself telling things like, it was illogical for any core medals to even spread to this part of the continent by chance. That last explosion was definitely big, but it could not have covered such a big area.

But a part of him reminded, that time those cores entered some kind of black hole inside Doctor Maki's chest. So it might cause the cores to be sent to just about anywhere on this earth. As long as it was not anywhere in _space_, then that would be a problem.

Ah well...

Eiji walked out of the room to sign himself out of the inn.

xxx

Eiji took out Ankh's broken cores again before sighing. That dream last night, if only that was real. Then Ankh would have already be by his side right now. But no, nothing would actually happen that easily. This wish he had, he should not be thinking that he could achieve it so easily. There was no easy way to achieve what he want, in order for that to happen... he have to keep on looking for the core medals. Not just to restore this one broken core, not just to revive Ankh back from the _dead_; but to also find a way to fulfil that wish Ankh had always have. To give him a true life. In order to make Ankh be able to become alive for real. Ankh had—in a way—made his wish come true. So he should also be returning that favour. That should be fair.

He did not know how he could achieve that though. But perhaps he could start by recovering all of the core medals again, even if there would still be some _missing—_due to his and Doctor Maki's actions that caused some of the cores to be destroyed in the past. There must be some other powers that these cores had still unknown, thus the chance that _that _unknown power could give him the answers he needed.

After all, was that not the reason Ankh had wanted to reclaim all of the existing core medals? Aside from his own? It was not just to allow OOO to gain more abilities, Ankh had wanted the cores for more reasons other than that! Pity he never thought of asking Ankh about that before. About _how _he would want to fulfil his desire to gain a life after gathering all of the cores.

Well, he would have even more time to ponder about it after he manage to find all of the cores later. No use worrying about this yet—someone suddenly shoved Eiji roughly as he staggered towards the ground. He gasped as he braced himself on impact. A soft tingling sound caught his attention as Eiji realized that the two pieces of Ankh's broken cores he was holding had fell out of his hand.

He hastily rolled over and scanned the area around him to look for any sign of the broken cores. Lucky not many people are walking on this road at the moment—come to think, where did the guy who shoved onto him just now? The road was not that crowded after all—

Eiji gasped as he finally caught sight of the two broken pieces a few distance from him. Lucky it did not went too far—someone suddenly picked both of the broken cores as Eiji hastily got up to call on the person.

"Ah! My mistake... those pieces belonged to me, tha—!"

Suddenly the person flashed him a smile before walking away with the cores as Eiji gave chase. The person immediately walked faster, before breaking into a run. The stranger had ran so fast suddenly, Eiji could almost not be able to keep up. And just as he thought he had the stranger cornered, Eiji jumped as the wall beside him exploded without warning.

Eiji looked up as the dust cleared before noticing an arrow, stuck at the side of the wall. He hastily picked up the pace as he tried to regain the lost lead. But somehow during the chase, that stranger that took Ankh's core had vanished... and somehow a strange monster was sneaking away in their place. Before Eiji could cry out, the monster suddenly turned towards him and shot another arrow. Eiji quickly evade as the monster took that chance to escape. Eiji blinked, as he thought he saw something flashing before the monster vanished into a cloud of smoke.

Was that... _stars_?

xxx

Elsewhere, a red-eyed man smiled in satisfaction as another member of the organization approached him slowly. The other member pulled out something to give to the red-eyed man as two pieces of a broken core dropped onto his palm.

"Good work, _Sagittarius. _With this, we may be able to obtain another source of power alongside the power of cosmos!"

Sagittarius appeared sceptical. "Just with this core? I do not understand."

The man smiled. "Have you heard about the Greeeds? Some time ago there were some incidents occurring with regards to these beings. As far as anyone know, the Greeeds are all but destroyed... save this one. Right now the remaining core medals that used to have caused a great calamity a few months ago are missing. We'll have _this_ one _help_ us to acquire those medals."

Sagittarius turned to look at the broken cores as the man clasped them tightly inside his fist. The man's hand glowed red as the red-eyed man tossed the medal out with one hand, before capturing it again with another. He noticed that the broken cores was now restored as one hawk medal.

The red-eyed man started to laugh.


	3. Chapter 2

Not gonna entertain any more debates about OOO and Fourze. As I'll end up dragging the whole universe along. Still drawing blank on titles. Maa, I'll keep the current one for now.

A/N: Spell-checkers/auto-correct functions do not always detect mistakes. If there are any, **please point out** the mistakes. Complaining will not be helpful.

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><p><span>Return<span>

Chapter 2: Lost

Written by Izzu

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"Kob kun krub..." said Eiji gratefully as he thanked the flight attendant that helped him out before boarding the plane. Eiji sighed as he took to his seat.

Who was that guy who ran off with Ankh's broken cores? What did he want with Ankh's cores? Hopefully they did not do anything bad... if they _destroyed_ those two broken cores, he was not sure how he could deal with that. He did not know what happened to Kazari when _he_ disappeared, he could not imagine what Uva must have gone through before he got turned into that berserk core vessel thing.

But he still remembered that moment when Mezool disappeared, even if he did not have any feelings towards either Mezool or Gamel. Seeing how heartbroken Gamel had been during Mezool's last moments was bad enough. And he heard about what happened to Gamel from both Date and Gotou...

When Ankh had spoken his last words that time, when Ankh vanished and he only managed to grab on _one_ broken core; it had hurt so much. It felt as if someone had thrust a big spike through his heart. Even if he used to get himself hurt in the past, those pain was not comparable to the pain he was feeling then. Losing Ankh, it was painful. His heart felt as if it could burst with all the sorrows and hurt he had felt then. It was _that_ painful.

After realizing that Ankh's core still remained despite broken in half, somehow... it did not feel so bad anymore. Because even as a broken core, he could still feel Ankh's presence inside of the core. That gave him some hope.

But if he had to _lose_ Ankh again this time, he was not sure he could deal with that anymore. Not being able to save him, not being able to do anything for him. Even if he would still have his other friends and families and other people that he cared by his side, that thought of him not being able to do anything for Ankh would keep on eating on him till the very last breath of his life. It would be a kind of regret that could never be erased from his heart.

Thus... he really hoped, that whoever that was that took Ankh's core; to not do anything bad towards those cores. Because until then, he would do all that he could to save what was left of Ankh's memories...

xxx

"Eh? Kougami Foundation was?"

Gotou shrugged at him as both of them took a seat inside the same eatery as he explained further. "Shingo-san was the one leading the investigation, because he felt if there was anything about the incident had any relation with... anything we've seen in the past; at least he could deal with it and not some of the other officers who have no clue about anything."

"Cell medals... huh? Did anyone else knew about this?"

Gotou shook his head. "No. The only thing that was released about the incident was that someone broke into the foundation and stole some important artefacts. Nothing was mentioned about the cell medals. Ever since the last uproar involving the Greeeds, Shingo-san felt that it would do no good if that part about cell medals made known. Although, I wonder why they took the cell medals. The other artefacts and documents relating to OOO and Greeed were still safe in the vaults though."

Eiji sighed. "So... both of you were in charge of this case, huh?"

Gotou nodded. "Yes... but why were you so concerned with this? Did something happen?"

Eiji smiled at him nervously. "Umm... actually, there was. You know that I kept Ankh's broken cores with me, right? Well... the truth is... someone _stole_ them from me—" Eiji immediately raised his hands to try calm Gotou down. "—don't get angry yet! I just... never expected that to happen so suddenly either. Gotou-san! Can you keep this to yourself? I don't want the others to worry yet... especially now with the cell medals involved—"

"And you think you could even _hide _it from me?"

Eiji jumped before turning towards Shingo in surprise. The man just smiled at him as he took a seat beside Eiji.

"So it wasn't just my feelings..."

Eiji cocked his head towards Shingo as Gotou explained. "Shingo-san had some suspicions as well about the case."

Shingo nodded weakly before turning towards Eiji.

"These few days, I occasionally had some unexplained feelings. As if there was something terrible going to happen somewhere... but I just could not place it. When Kougami Foundation have been broken in and those cell medals stolen, I immediately sensed something bad."

"But why would Kougami-san still have those cell medals?"

Gotou chuckled. "You should have that figured out already. Those cell medals was from Kougami-san's private collection, aside from the large accumulation of it that you saw before in the other vault. Plus, after the last incident they managed to recover some other remaining cells lying around the city. There was that aftermath after the giant vessel's explosion, the remains of the other Greeeds scattered around as well as the cell medals Gamel had created. Satonaka-san even said they found some cell medals in some forest! The amount was not that much, but it was still a lot of cell medals recovered. Knowing Kougami-san, he would not leave those cell medals lying around like that."

"But honestly..." Shingo suddenly spoke. "To go so far as to steal all those cell medals from Kougami Foundation.. and even to take Ankh's broken core..."

"Don't worry about it. I'll investigate about this as well. I won't let anyone do anything bad using Ankh's core."

Shingo smiled weakly at him. "Sorry to keep making you do these kinds of thing. We'll do what we can as well on our side." He sighed. "Eiji-kun, where are you going to stay for now? Or are you planning to stay at Gotou-kun's place? Or if you don't mind, you're always welcome at my place. Just that, keep this from Hina. She didn't have to know about Ankh for now..."

Eiji nodded. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

xxx

He looked up towards the sky as he frowned at it. What a peculiar sight. What was this place he was in right now? Why was he here? What was he supposed to be doing here? Everything around him seemed to be so strange...

There was suddenly sounds of voices coming out of the other side of the building as he crept closer to take a look. There was a bunch of _creatures_ walking together, laughing—to each other. They were wearing similar-looking clothes...

He turned away from looking at those creatures before noticing his own self. He stared at his hands, they were similar to _those other creatures_. Was he... the same as _them_? What are _them_?

"You! What are you doing wandering out by yourself?"

He jumped, before turning around.

An irate looking creature was walking towards him very fast before grabbing on his hand. He immediately pulled away as the—man—groaned loudly.

"Stop acting so clueless. We still have a lot to do!"

He blinked in confusion as he continued to stare at the man blankly.

"Where... am _I_?"

The man just rolled his eyes at him before dragging him back towards the other building.


End file.
